The number of DC master trust schemes with 12 or more members has increased by 11 per cent – from 44 to 49 – and the membership of master trusts has increased by 50 per cent, from 250,000 to 380,000 members.
TPR’s figures show there are now 2.6m members of occupational DC schemes, a year-on-year increase of 14 per cent. The combined value of assets in DC schemes with 12 or more members now stands at £30bn.
The regulator has published figures on around 40,000 DC schemes and includes data such as memberships and assets spanning the past five years. TPR says the data does not fully reflect the volume of new memberships into DC schemes as a result of automatic enrolment – due to the staggered dates that schemes complete their scheme returns to the regulator.
The proportion of members aged 50 or above has remained stable at 24 per cent. The average size of pension transfers is £30,000, while the average pot size at retirement is £25,000.
TPR head of DC regulation Darran Burton says: “Automatic enrolment is already having an impact on the DC landscape and we are seeing an increase in the number of members, as well as participating master trusts.
“We recently published our DC code of practice and will be stepping up our work with pension schemes to ensure good practice is embedded across all trust-based schemes during 2014”.
